In our Australian Patent No. 536070 (AU-B 62281/80) we have described an improved evacuation restraint which materially improved the securement of bedridden patients for evacuation purposes. In using evacuation restraints embodying the above invention, the mattress supporting a bed-confined patient is utilised to minimise the disturbance of the patient and to protect the patient during the evacuation procedure.
Further consideration of evacuation procedures has shown that it is advantageous to be able to slide the restraint-confined mattress along the floor, over obstacles or down stairs. The restraint described in our earlier patent has been found to be not entirely suitable for that purpose even though it offered a material improvement over the previously known restraints in the manner in which it confined a patient within a mattress.
To protect restraints of the above type against soiling and to enable it to be accessed in a standard manner to minimise delays in the event of an emergency, the restraint is desirably housed in a plastics envelope of the type described in Australian Patent AU-B 34433/78 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,453). However, in using packages of this type it has been found that access to the pull handles by means of which the envelope is opened to gain access to the restraint straps requires the mattress to be lifted to an excessive extent whereby the patient may be undesirably disturbed. Furthermore, the package described in the above patent is not entirely convenient to handle during manufacture, marketing and storage prior to use and the cost of manufacture of such packages is relatively high.